Sita teaching the Big Book
Sita Kini is a volunteer teacher at Kalo Adult Literacy School in the Central Province. A mother of four, she has been teaching at the school for the last ten years. She does this work for free, but enjoys it very much.
Sita is young and vibrant and tries her very best to meet the needs of her pupils, who range from the very young to people in their 60s.
A total of 20 keen adult learners come for classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in the afternoons for two hours from 1pm to 3pm.
The women come with their children. What amazes her is that the children are learning faster than the adult learners although they are not taught directly.
"Small Book" for the learners to read at home
Teaching the big book is shared reading which gives opportunity to the shy and quiet ones to participate to read together with , the children and everybody else in the reading of the big book. They all enjoy doing the follow-up activities. Both mothers and children dramatize and role play the big book story they read together. All the big book stories that she teaches all have small books to go with them. They are made by silk screen for mothers to use. The excited mothers take home the small books and read them at home with the help of their husbands, children and grandchildren. The learners in Sita’s class never run out of books to read because she exchanges reading material with the neighbouring literacy class.
Everyone reads the books because the books are written by the community and they written in the local language. The people of the community write the big books as well as the small books during writers workshops. The community cook food to feed the writers. The stories are familiar and interesting and deals with the felt needs of the community.